Austral English / A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia - Edward Ellis Morris

<hw>Zebra</hw>-fish, n. name given to the fish Neotephraeops zebra, Richards.

<hw>Zebra-Wolf</hw>, n. i.q. Tasmanian Wolf, or Tasmanian Tiger (q.v.).

<hw>Zelanian</hw>, a scientific term, meaning `pertaining to New Zealand,' from Zelania, a Latinised form of Zealand.

<hw>Zosterops</hw>, n. the scientific name of a genus of Australian birds, often called also popularly by that name, and by the names of Wax-eye, White-eye, Silver-eye (q.v.), Ring-eye, Blight-bird (q.v.), etc. From the Greek zowstaer, a girdle, `anything that goes round like a girdle' (`L. & S.'), and 'owps, the eye; the birds of the genus have a white circle round their eyes. The bird was not generally known in New Zealand until after Black Thursday (q.v.), in 1851, when it flew to the Chatham Islands. Some observers, however, noted small numbers of one species in Milford Sound in 1832. New Zealand birds are rarely gregarious, but the Zosterops made a great migration, in large flocks, from the South Island to the North Island in 1856, and the Maori name for the bird is `The Stranger' (Tau-hou). Nevertheless, Buller thinks that the species Z. caerulescens is indigenous in New Zealand.

(See under Silver-eye, quotation 1888.)
The species are—

Zosterops caerulescens, Lath.

Green-backed Z.— Z. gouldi, Bp.; called also Grape-eater, and Fig-eater (q.v.).

Gulliver's Z.—
Z. gulliveri, Castln. and Ramsay.

Pale-bellied Z.—
Z. albiventer, Homb. and Jacq.

Yellow Z.—
Z. lutea, Gould.